SparkDad

The first Friday that the Camaro arrived, Mama and I met our neighbors at a Mid-Town Houston restaurant for dinner. 

All of my life I have only owned two new cars. And these new cars were not top of the line models like this one, so never has anyone offered to do anything special for my car.

When we arrived at the restaurant we drove around looking for parking but were unsuccessful so we decided to go ahead and valet the car.

When we pulled up to the valet stand and the valet approached the car. He took a good look at the car.

“Hello Sir. How are you this evening?”, said the Valet.

“Fine.", I said.

“Would you like to have the car parked out front?”, the Valet motioned to a parking spot in front of the restaurant.

Let me tell you that Mama and I were caught off guard. The Valets like to park the expensive, nice cars out front to help the establishments image.

I do not get that in my Nissan Pathfinder : )

All I can say is the Camaro is fantastic, affordable luxury. American muscle. I love it!

- Spark Dad

- Spark Dad

This year had to have been one of the worst years for Super Bowl commercials. I did however see a commercial for Vacation Rental.org

that sparked my interest. They had a very funny vacation rental commercial.

This site is a travel site that focuses on staying at vacation homes instead of at a hotel when on a trip. This is a great idea and concept. They are very hard to find because there is no unified way to search them, but there are some phenomenal values in the industry, especially if you are going with a large group.

We used a vacation rental on our last summer vacation to Lake Medina, Texas. It was the second year that we rented the same home. The cost was about $1500 for a week and the home slept $10 so for about $150 per person for the week we had a lake front property!

I think that the next time that Mama and I do a weekend getaway we may check into using Vacation Rental.org

See you soon! – Spark Dad

Insurance. The industry we all love to hate. No let me preface this by letting you know that I am a licenses insurance agent and can sell both property insurance and life and health insurance. I have worked for State Farm, Allstate and Farmers.

During this time, I have only been insured by State Farm, even when I worked for Allstate and Farmers. But this year my rates went up by about $600 per year on our homeowners policy! Wow! That was a crazy high increase. Of course State Farm sited the recent hurricane Ike damage and expenses as the reason for the rate increase. I understand from a insurance industry stand point. I know what I would be telling my customers if they were calling me asking why their rates went up so much.

But as a consumer I have to wonder if I am making the right decision by keeping loyal to State Farm. Now there are reasons that I stick with them. First of all they have always paid claims on time and paid them properly. Never making me feel like I got short changed.

The other reason is that our State Farm policy includes wind and hurricane coverage which is rare in the Texas Gulf Coast.

So because of the price I sent shopping for insurance. I began by typing in Google, " car insurance ". It brought me to a great site called Net Quote that allowed me to enter my information once and get several quotes for insurance for several companies. It worked great and I was happy with the response.

I found some companies that were a little cheaper, but in the end my loyalty to State Farm because of my treatment during hurricane Ike and previous claims won.

But if you are ever in need of insurance be sure to use a site like Net Quote to help you find competing quotes.

-Spark Dad

In an earlier post I discussed my sunglass problems. This week I received a call from my eye doctor to come look at some frames that they ordered in for me to take a look at. My local eye doctor is a chain so the frames were less than spectacular!

When I bought the shades in Albuquerque at Dr. Iron’s Office I was able to get a very nice Oakley frame. I have received more compliments on my glasses this month that I received on my glasses in the past three years.  So you can understand why I am being a little picky.

I searched the web again and once again come up with Moda sunglasses. They have a nice selection. After looking around their site I found the shades in the photo at right. I am going to my eye doctor on Monday to see if they can order them.

I will update you all when I find the answer. Until then check out the great prices at Moda sunglasses.

- Spark Dad